Dark Energy or Apparent Acceleration Due to a Relativistic Cosmological Model More Complex than FLRW?

Abstract

We use the Szekeres inhomogeneous relativistic models in order to fit supernova combined data sets. We show that with a choice of the spatial curvature function that is guided by current observations, the models fit the supernova data almost as well as the LCDM model without requiring a dark energy component. The Szekeres models were originally derived as an exact solution to Einstein's equations with a general metric that has no symmetries and are regarded as good candidates to model the true lumpy universe that we observe. The null geodesics in these models are not radial. The best fit model found is also consistent with the requirement of spatial flatness at CMB scales. The first results presented here seem to encourage further investigations of apparent acceleration using various inhomogeneous models and other constraints from CMB and large structure need to be explored next.

6 pages, 1 figure, matches version published in PRD

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• Is the Observable Universe Consistent with the Cosmological Principle?
• Szekeres Swiss-Cheese model and supernova observations
• The Cosmic Microwave Background in an Inhomogeneous Universe - why void models of dark energy are only weakly constrained by the CMB
• Cosmic spherical void via coarse-graining and averaging non-spherical structures
• Ricci focusing, shearing, and the expansion rate in an almost homogeneous Universe
• Redshift propagation equations in the ${\beta }^{\prime }\ne 0$ Szekeres models
• Averaging Robertson-Walker Cosmologies
• Effect of inhomogeneities on high precision measurements of cosmological distances
• CMB dipoles and other low-order multipoles in the quasispherical Szekeres model
• Newtonian analogue of Schwarzschild de-Sitter spacetime: Influence on the local kinematics in galaxies
• Can cosmic acceleration be caused by exotic massless particles?
• Frame Rotation in the Szekeres Spacetimes
• Beyond relativistic Lagrangian perturbation theory. I. An exact-solution controlled model for structure formation